Road of Good Intentions
by AriBridge
Summary: Elphaba Thropp leaves Kiamo Ko. It is a Witch who returns. No one is quite sure if she is the tormentor or the tormented. My attempt to reconcile 'No Good Deed' with the book, that I promptly lost control of. Sucky summary, better story. I promise. COMPLETE
1. Kiamo Ko

**_A/N: I'm back! I know I said I'd do the Teeth sequel, Bones, but this decided to take priority in terms of what needed to be written. This started as a one-shot so there is a moment where the start sort of repeats and is not covered up very well. I really enjoyed writing this. It started as my attempt to reconcile 'No Good Deed' with the book, and then just sort of decided to go from there and here we are. Formatting is a bit weird, sorry._**

**_DISCLAIMER: I do not own the musical or the book. I have used direct quotes from Gregory Maguire's book, I do not own the book nor the quotes. I have used lyrics. They are used for entertainment purposes only, the only profit I am getting is if people decide to review. If anyone has a problem or I am doing something wrong, let me know._**

**Road of good intentions 1: Kiamo Ko**

"Elphaba?" The elderly Nanny questioned the green-skinned woman who all but flew past her. The unnamed woman did not stop. It was as if she were answering the call of some higher, or lower, power. Perhaps she was. She paid no heed to the small boy who cowered on the staircase. There was no response even when he followed some strange compulsion to make sure she returned safely from her tower to him.

In the dining room, Nanny had no such desire to follow the fearsome woman. She had a vague sense of familiarity surrounding the unidentified figure. Old and dotty as she was, Nanny didn't recognize it was her young charge who had grown up in harsh conditions and undergone some irrevocable changes. An expected despair would have gripped the old woman if she'd been able to know the other.

Since birth, the green girl had walked a road of good intentions. She aspired to fly high and match the greatest in renown. Nearly did, too. But they'd all known the looking glass of her childhood had been dark and clouded. That was the reason she would have smiled almost knowingly to see where the other woman stood. The thought ay have crossed her mind that perhaps she had flown higher than any of them would have imagined. Risen into the dark night of moral esteem. Nanny would see that the young woman had ascended into a realm that, despite being darker, was clearer than the light that blinded everyone else in Oz.

At that moment neither woman could see the true identity of the green-hued female, so neither commented.

The Witch cut an imposing figure. In the rounded tower of Kiamo Ko, she was all sharp angles. She paced around the room, suddenly feeling cramped and constrained but, having no desire to move. In a fit she tore the hat from her head and flung it from her. Sharp nails raked through her raven hair, freeing it from its tight knot. It swung as she did and fell to frame her face. The mess of her hair served as an external indication of the state of her mind. Realizing this, the Witch whirled around and gripped the window pane hard enough that her fingers began to bleed. She swayed a little, part-way out the window. Staring down the long drop. Into hell.

She screamed his name.

His name burned her lips like water. A suitable accompaniment to the long, thin welts forming on her face from her eyes. The agonizing note was the first time she had expressed his loss out loud; she had been silent in her ears at the Mauntery and Sarima, in denying her forgiveness, had also withheld therapeutic closure. Oversized Sarima and her sisters and the children she had borne him. Dead and gone and with them, the Witch's connection to her lover. As with him, there were no bodies over which she could mourn. Bodies that could make their deaths real and release her from her obligations to her life. Oh if she could be so lucky. One more disaster she could add to her generous supply. What it ultimately came down to was: she had failed him.

That was the fact that ultimately broke the Witch. She spun from the window and flailed wildly for the Grimmerie. In her hands it fell open and the Witch chanted the words in utter desperation, reading the words through the burn in her eyeballs that made her want to gouge them out. Sure enough, the words blurred before her. With a wicked screech the useless book was violently pitched to the opposite side of the room.

Nothing left to hold on to, the Witch crumpled to the ground. In a pool of her own burning tears, she simply could not care about it. Once more, she screamed for him. She vowed that never again would his name taunt her lips, though he would continue to haunt and hurt.

Liir stared at the crumpled form of the Witch from his hiding spot near where she'd thrown that strange book of hers. But he could not see the Witch. He could see only the woman. Elphaba, was the name Nanny had told them belonged to the woman. Nanny had also said that the title 'mother' belonged to this figure who dominated their lives.

The boy had found it exceedingly difficult to reconcile 'mother' with 'Wicked Witch of the West'. Until now. Or, more correctly, he realized he didn't have. She'd always been protective of him, to the point of killing Manek – he'd overheard her rambling to Chistery – and he now knew every threat to boil him had been a misguided way of showing affection. The title of Wicked was incorrect. Liir had a sudden insight the woman had known she was walking a path of brokenness, but had ended up shattered.

Here was the crux of the matter. The woman on the stone floor had nothing and no one left. Even Liir had been cold to her of late. He saw how cruel that small inaction had been. She mourned the loss of her lover. His father? His coldness and the death of Sarima had severed all her ties to the only good thing in her life. She was stranded, alone in the castles despite being there with Nanny, not that she counted for much anymore, and himself.

That left him alone as well. Not only could he no longer have the father he wished for, but he was about to lose the mother he needed. And who needed him. This fear in his mind, he ran forward.

But he skidded to a stop just shy of her. Nor did he reach out even a finger tip to hold her. He did not know how to. She had never taught him. He paused, peered at her and prayed it would be enough.

She had sensed his approach. She had willed him to take that last step. Even pleaded with all the gods she could think of. Finally she had sought the spirit of the boy's father. All to no avail.

Even so, he had rushed the air back into her starved body and she inhaled deeply. Her bony shoulders shook with the effort. It was a temporary reprieve, she knew, unless she could grasp the boy of hose origins she was vaguely aware. But Frex had never taught her. It seemed a physical incapacitation. It was another failure, the consequence of which, she would deal with later.

Strange, was always the description given to her eyes. Never had the description been more apt than when she finally raised her head. They shined brighter than ever before and their depths were just as unfathomable. It was almost as if the depths were more visible, like a cover removed from a well. This cover was what had made them safe to look into. Now the cover was removed, anyone who looked could fall in and be in danger of becoming as lost as she was.

The woman shifted into the Witch as she pulled herself onto her haunches. It was an animalistic posture and gave her a vicious, primal quality. If he was an animal, she was caged. There was little else in the world as dangerous. Even a dam wall about to burst was, at best, only of equal power. She watched as this realization dawned in Liir's eyes; the boy was directly in her path. Pity coursed through her and she paused so suddenly, she physically jolted. This was a chance for her to make good.

The boy had closed his eyes, she saw, in anticipation of her onslaught. It was unavoidable, but it would not hit him. The Witch swept past the small boy on the floor. He felt the rush of air and heard the door slam, but that was all.

**_A/N: That was where it was going to finish. I still have a lot more. This fic is completely written, but I think I will alternate uploads of this with uploads of Bones to ensure I actually get Bones done. Inspiration for Bones is down a bit at the moment. Sorry guys. Please review!_**


	2. Interlude

**_A/N: Still totally and utterly stuck with Bones. So in apology you can have more this one. This chapter is short so I'll give you the next one too. Disclaimer is really important on this one and can be found in the first chapter. I don't own anything recognizable. Please review!_**

**_Thanks to my pretties LillyFae, Elphieispopular and Doglover645 who have followed me since Teeth and reviewed the last chapter._**

**Road of Good Intentions 2: Interlude**

The air the Witch swept up that day in Kiamo Ko didn't recede. For a year, it was as if a storm that originated from the old castle was determined to tear up the Vinkus. A few people connected the strange wind with the foreign woman who had arrived some years prior; the natural order of things had been disrupted since her presence had been announced in the region.

As it drew near to a year of the unusual weather, the Vinkuns had bigger problems to deal with. They were not alone. The rest of Oz had also come under the power of this new storm. Very few citizens recognized the Tornado when it descended, they were too rare of an occurrence to be common knowledge and could usually be traced back to some nefarious witch or wizard. Nanny correctly identified it, simply because she was old enough to have remembered the last one when the Wizard had arrived and the Ozma was deposed. Elphaba, soft in a moment of distraction and nostalgia, had seen small ones in Quadling Country, vaguely recalled the last one and had enough nous to know it and suspect its unnatural origin. Liir, entirely ignorant, had clung to the nearest black skirts in terror, causing their owner to flinch. He settled down once the two older women were able to explain it to him.

Suddenly the winds dropped. So did the Witch. With an ear-splitting screech. A moment later, the clingy boy roughly shaken off, she was on the broom and riding the head-winds towards Muchkinland. Her sister's name fell pathetically from her emerald lips.


	3. Colwen Grounds

**Road of Good Intentions 3: Colwen Grounds**

A variety of reactions greeted the Witch when she landed at Colwen Grounds. She connected with the ground quite forcefully. So much so that if she hadn't been pressing forward as urgently, she would have fallen. Some of the Munchkins showed concern, until they saw her skin, most turned or ran away. Penned Animals looked at her with a hopeless sort of respect. Her days working with the resistance had left a lasting and widespread impression. Frex seemed entirely hollow when he clasped her hand.

"My precious daughter, you have returned to me. You will take your title and save us all!" He pleaded with her. The green woman had resolved not to speak to the man who had sired her, but now that resolve crumbled.

"Spare me!" She spat. "We are both too old for lies that placated an unloved child. Your precious daughter stands not before you, but lies under a house. Do not delude yourself. I have returned not to you, but to my sister to ensure this freedom from a crippling obligation is not merely a tantalizing illusion. No longer am I required to pull you and push her. As to my title, yes, I belive I shall take it and fly. I am the Wicked Witch of the West!"

She was quite breathless at the end of her tirade, so stormed out to avoid Frex seeing this weakness. Munchkins scattered left and right when she reappeared but she grabbed one and ordered him to ensure her father's comfort and to find someone to put her up for a night. The funeral was the next day and she had no desire to stay in Colwen Grounds or outside where it might rain. Surprisingly, a family had already offered to house the deposed leader for a night. She went there immediately.

The Witch was nervous, so much so she fidgeted. Baring her teeth and hissing had proved ineffectual at dissuading her captor. Those damned eyes would not be turned away. The Munchkin girl was only about 4 or 5 and had been ordered to make sure the Witch stayed put and ate until the girl's mother returned.

"Are you really a witch?" The girl asked eventually.

"Yes. I kidnap and kill children." She responded, thinking of Liir and Manek and, attempting to scare the girl off. Then her curiosity got the better of her. "Why?"

"Well," the girl seemed pleased with her victory, "I don't think you like a witch. Other than being green, you're kinda pretty." The girl blushed and the Witch's eyebrow flew higher than her broom. She quickly recovered.

"It's more than just looks, you little upstart. I'm soulless and Wicked."

"No you're not. You're afraid of your soul, but you have one. And you're not wicked. Besides they called Miss Nessarose wicked and, she was just crazy. And scared." The girl shrugged and swung her legs. The Witch doubted her eyebrows would return to its normal position any time soon.

"If she was crazy and afraid, what am I?" The Witch nearly cursed herself for giving into the whims of this impertinent little brat.

"Wanting. Insane. Terrified. Caged. Hurt." The girl ticked them off and grinned. "Witch."

"And you're an inconvenient child."

"Why are you here?"

"Because I'm a Wicked Witch and so was she. There was a convention in town. She unfortunately got squashed by a house." The Witch thought she was quite witty, the girl did not.

"She was your sister, you wanted something she had and you never got. That other girl is going to want something she never got, from you."

"From me? Hang on… what other girl?"

"The one in the house, of course." The girl seemed genuinely surprised at the older woman's apparent ignorance. The Witch stood and made to storm out of the house.

"You're too late. Again." The Munchkin said, barely looking up.

"Where did you get that?" Asked the Witch anxiously. Her eyes had lighted upon a looking glass, so familiar. But that was in her chest back home at Kiamo Ko. She whirled on the young girl and clasped the thin chin, examining the eyes that had unnerved her. The Witch's own eyes flashed violently before she swept from the house. The girl continued to look sadly after the Witch, seeing through the vistas of time and space.

"She is scared. Maybe she will run home after she has left us." Came Mother Yackle's voice as she returned to the house.

Still breathing hard from her encounter from her encounter with the disconcerting girl, the Witch once again found her oxygen restricted.

"Elphie!" The high-pitched voice emerged from the pile of blonde curls compressed against the green woman's chest. She disentangled herself and offered her old friend the kindest expression she'd worn since leaving Kiamo Ko.

"Glinda, my sweet, I had heard you were here."

"I was absolutely devastated, one of the first on the scene. To see poor Nessie like that, only those shoes of hers visible. Oh Elphie, I'm so sorry."

"We were not close. I am here for those shoes, she promised them to me."

"Oh Elphie!" Glinda looked mortified and the other woman scowled. "I sent them out of Munchkinland with the poor child in the house, Dorothy."

"Aside from you having no right to do such a thing, she is hardly a poor child. In the house that killed my sister! Where did you send them? I want those shoes!"

"I had to get those shoes out of Munchkinland; they hold far too much political influence with the Wizard trying to re-annex the state. And don't you take up against Dorothy, she's an innocent about to be caught up in the mess that is Ozian politics, which you know all about. She'd be horrified to know she killed your sister. She's gone along the Yellow Brick Road to the Emerald City. She thinks the Wizard can send her home."

"You know as well as I do, he's a charlatan. Now you've given him the tools to re-annex and enslave Munchkinland. You're right I do know all about this, more than you apparently. Those shoes are mine. I will get them!"

"For Lurline's sake, Elphaba Thropp, they are just shoes!" Glinda seemed to realize something and softened. "You cannot win your father's love by taking those shoes; they will not put you in Nessa's place in his heart."

The Witch recoiled as if she'd been slapped. There were too many years between them for a pair of shoes to tear them apart. But those years could put the poison on the end of the knife and drive it in that much farther. Glinda realized she was in the wrong and stepped forward, one hand out to pull her friend from whichever dark hole she was lost and trapped in.

"And no matter how much material you put in your gowns, you are just as hollow as the tin man." The words hurt as the Witch forced them out through a haze of pain and tight lips. Though they seemed even enough. The Gilikinese dropped her hand and looked at her dress, partly out of self-cosciousness and partly to conceal the wound her friend had carved in her chest.

"You are broken and out of control Miss Elphaba." Glinda whispered, for the first time seeing the damage done to the green woman she had known so, so many years ago. She wondered if her friend was somewhere still inside the Wicked Witch of the West, but she doubted it.

"I want those shoes."


	4. Interlude 2

**_A/N: My faithful reviewers who have been with me since the start; LillyFae, Elphieispopular, Doglover645, how can I ever thank you enough for sticking with me right from Teeth. I'm too excited by this one to not post it all, so you shall have it all in the next 24 hours._**

**RoGI 4: Interlude 2**

Liir had been waiting for any news of the woman who maybe, or maybe not, was his mother in the weeks of her absence. After her sister's funeral she'd been sighted in the Emerald City, apparently being ordered to an audience with the Wizard. Young though he was, Liir knew no good would come of that meeting. Any time he had asked Elphaba about the Wizard, she had sworn profusely. Even out in the Vinkus, Liir had heard that the Wicked Witch of the West had terrorized Munchkinland, been linked to a murder elsewhere and then returned to Munchkinland. After that, nothing. The boy guessed the silence meant she was on her way home, so he waited for her. As such, he was the first to see her come in. There was no point in following her while she spoke with Nanny, so he waited in her tower. Sure enough, she stalked in a moment later.

At first the woman collapsed into a chair. Liir realized she was asleep. Then figured out he was trapped. If he moved and woke her, there was a good chance she would hex him into oblivion. Or just cast him out the window. Or boil him. He shuddered, best to just settle down and sleep too. He would wake when she did.


	5. Kiamo Ko 2

**_A/N: These next few are all quite short, because we are within sight of the end. Yay! Or not, because as I have said, I have loved writing this._**

**RoGI 5: Kiamo Ko**

The Witch woke with a scream from her nightmare and flung herself upright from the chair. Her eyes darted wildly and she began to make a potion, which she downed upon its completion. Drums pounded in her chest and the mythical sea roared in her mind. Even the realm of sleep had betrayed her and no longer provided respite. Now there was no escape from her thoughts.

She started with her experience at the Time Dragon Clock. What she could actually remember of it, at least. The dwarf had been wrong; a part of her was dead and gone. Elphaba Thropp had died years ago in the Emerald City, at the same time as her lover, leaving only a Witch. And then there were those days, so numerous of late, the Witch felt her sanity had gone someplace else. Perhaps it had gone to cower in fear of her mind and her life, with her soul. Then there had been that strange play that was as yet, unfinished. It had implied a link between herself and Sain Aelphaba, something even the maunts had done. Initially dismissed the idea, until she wondered if she was looking at it the wrong way.

A long time ago she had accepted dualisms and dichotomies, and here was the most perfect one of all. Good and Evil. Aelphaba and Elphaba/The Wicked Witch of the West. They were perfect opposites, down to their relationships with water. The Saint was given new life in the water. The Witch would have it washed away from her. One with too much soul. Another with none at all. Perhaps together, they were complete. The third incarnation would be fully realized. She would be born of the waterfall, the Rain. Aelphaba had gone into the waterfall and Elphaba had come from another land. Perhaps the other land lay beyond that waterfall. She was a half-breed alright. The wicked half of the complete being. The whole being the marriage of the Sacred and the Wicked that the dwarf had spoken of.

The Witch cackled at her own delusions. If she believed she was from beyond a waterfall, then she would start believing in her own nightmares. That thought sobered her up. A world literally drowned awaited her in her sleep and she had no desire to bring it to her waking reality. In following that thought, the Witch spiralled herself into a depression, before raging at herself and sending shockwaves through the room.

And this was how she spent her weeks. Raging and weeping for her mind that fractured beyond repair. She downed the potions compulsively to keep herself awake. In her fevered state, her mind tore into itself searching for a soul it did not want to find. Her soul waited outside her body, catapulted out on her beating heart. It waited for a body to accept it so it could redeem herself. So the Witch could redeem herself. But who needed redemption. She needed only forgiveness to transcend the moralistic damnation that formed the chains between herself and the stones she waited to pitch in to the water. And drag herself down.

For weeks, Liir watched her distance herself from the world, become the Witch. He felt alienated from her. Although, when he called her 'Auntie', she spat at him that she was more than that. Later, he had heard her weeping and being violently ill. The admission that she wanted a soul confused him. He thought she had a soul.

Nanny had told him a soul was something completely pure inside everyone. It determined a person's morals. As their life progressed the soul could be changed and blackened according to how they had nurtured it. The soul could even be locked away. If the soul remained pure in the face of adversity, the owner might try and protect it. Then it holds itself aloof and won't invest lest it becomes hurt. The person seems abrupt and distant. When the owner touches the soul once again, it is an intense fire. Catharsis is achieved through excruciating pain. The person changes shape and is separate from those around them.

Liir thought the Witch was trapped in the cathartic moment, waiting for it to complete and then she would get her release. He wondered if her soul had experienced so much that, instead of locking it away, the Witch had forced it from her very being and it had taken on a new shape outside of her. If that had occurred, it would explain why she was in want of one.

The boy wondered how that particular definition would interact with the knowledge of her own impending murder, at the hands of an innocent child. It surprised him that he as actually considering this foreign girl as being capable of killing the formidable Witch. Previously, the boy would have dismissed the idea with a cackle so like the Witch's own. With the Witch as unstable, and so vulnerable, as she was, Liir was forced to acknowledge the possibility that he could actually lose her forever. Only recently had this become a matter of the utmost importance to the boy. No, a point of fear, he realized. He continued to pay close attention to her descent.


	6. No Good Deed

**_A/N: And finally we reach the point of this entire adventure… No Good Deed. This one is based solely off the song, so I have left it alone and will put Liir's reaction in a separate chapter, like the interludes. This is also where it repeats what happened at the start. There is 2 very short chapters and an Epilogue after this._**

**Road of Good Intentions 6: No Good Deed**

The Witch was less concerned with her would-be murdered, than with the girl's companions. It had come to her attention she knew both the Lion and the Tin-Man. In years past, when she had been known as Elphaba and foolishly believed in good intentions, she had saved a young Lion from a cage. He had grown up believing that the young woman who had tried to save him, was a terrifying villain. The Tin-Man had been a Munchkin by the name of Nick Chopper, who had fallen victim to the Wicked Witch of the East, Nessarose. The Witch found she couldn't blame the poor man for hating her as an extension of her sister. Even the titles were not dissimilar. Indeed, she almost pitied him and had actually considered consulting the Grimmerie for a way to help him. But why suggest now she was anything other than what they apparently needed her to be: Wicked. Besides there was as yet one more member of the girl's entourage to consider.

He was a man of straw. It utterly confused the Witch. At first she thought it was simply a very skilled dances in a bizarre costume. The more she watched, however, she realized she was wrong. He really was made entirely of straw. Suddenly, she recalled the spell she had attempted to cast on her lover. She whirled and stared wildly out of the window. Her breath was sharp and coming in ragged gasps. She was suffocating. The knot of her hair was about to trigger a migraine, so she released it and allowed it to fall around her face. Like blinkers, it limited her vision. As she had weeks prior, she reached frantically for the Grimmerie. She screamed for him; a prayer that he would come home to her. If she noticed she was repeating her failed attempts from all those months ago, she did not seem to care.

The Witch began to chat the repetitive spell, her free hand moving in time as if she were lacing the very air with the magic she was calling upon. Her voice held steady even as she began to plead for his safety, for him to return to her in one piece. Burning tears filled her eyes, nearly blinding her with pain and making the difficult letters impossible to read. On the fourth repetition her voice cracked in desperation for the words were gone. She screeched her denial into the pulsating air.

Still in the rhythm of the spell, she questioned the words she was chanting. In doing so, the Witch questioned herself and revealed the deep-seated insecurity that was her weakest vulnerability. The doubt grew within her, etching thoughts of failure and loss into the fundamental fibres of her being. They replaced her soul. His loss, after she had given herself to him so completely, was the final straw.

No good deed, goes unpunished.

She renounced all good deeds, acts of charity and crashed horrifically off the road of good intentions. For good measure, the Witch recalled her other failures; Nessa, Doctor Dillamond and all the other Animals. Still, it always came back to him.

FIyero.

The sustained thought of him brought Elphaba to her knees, never to get up again. The silhouette of the Witch remained standing, in her element. Complete. Cackling and crying. How far one can fall. Maybe she'd never risen in the first place. Perhaps her actions had simply been a ploy to capture the attention of someone. It would explain why all her endeavours had failed. Well, she had their attention now. The thought strengthened her resolve.

So be it. So be it then.

For a long time she had maintained she was only playing at being Wicked. But if she could not save Fiyero, there was nothing for her, no point. Finally, all of Oz could be agreed.

She was the Wicked.


	7. The Witch and the Dog

**RoGI 7: The Witch and her dog**

Liir had stared as he watched the woman fall to her knees and then as the Witch had stood in her place. It was as if she had built a wall of wickedness around her and, most of the bricks had his father's name on them. The last though, had been her familiar, Killyjoy. He had been killed by the approaching party. Chistery was the latest to be sent. Fearfully, the young boy wondered if the Witch would throw him out the window if Chistery was killed. No longer was there any recognition in the Witch's eyes when she looked at him. When he had tried to go to her, she had lashed out. Suddenly the Witch grinned cruelly and Liir found himself being chased down the stairs before he even realized what was happening.

A layer of composure had settled over the thin frame as she faced her would-be murderer. The boy thought she looked even more terrifying than she had ever before, even in the last few weeks. He knew the calm exterior was a thin layer. She reminded him of a time when Killyjoy had been cornered. Tail between his legs, the dog had bitten out viciously. Liir also knew the Witch was much more dangerous than any dog.


	8. Dorothy

**_A/N: Introducing Dorothy! And the last chapter besides the epilogue. Points to whoever picks up what I've done with the shoes. It was fun coming up with all the insults for Dorothy. See LillyFae, I'm not sadistic to just Elphaba. _**

**_Shameless line stealing from Gregory Maguire. It's so not mine. I wish it was, but it's not. I love it so much I had to. Any problems, let me know_**

**_I didn't mention all of you wonderful people because it was stupid o'clock in the morning but thank you to LillyFae, Doglover645 and Elphieispopular. And a massive welcome to my particular brand of insanity to UndefeatedAura_**

**RoGI 8: Dorothy**

It had taken an infuriating amount of work to get the stupid little girl on her own. As such, the Witch had made a grievous error. Between herself and the door was the infernal little parasite of a child. And those shoes. She snarled. All pretence of sane civility had been wantonly discarded. The Witch was satisfied to see the little pest cower in fright. The brat had tearfully proclaimed she was unable to remove the shoes. Unfortunately, the wench had proven it. Soundly cursing her former friend, the Witch too had tried and failed to remove the shoes. Eventually she had withdrawn and was glaring at the gingham mess from the opposite side of the room.

"First you take my _dear _sister's shoes, then you will take my doting boy after you have taken my life. Ha, the joke of sending a pure little thing like you to kill Wicked me."

In spitting as she had, the Witch revealed the crux of the matter, though the idiot child appeared too dim to realize it. The child was a lost little girl harbouring foolishly idealistic dreams and clinging desperately onto any little scrap of favour she could steal. As if to add insult to injury, the little fool was apparently the image of all that was good and yet, here she was about to take the last meagre possessions of the Witch. And the tired old Witch was probably going to let her do it.

"You're my soul come scavenging for me, I can feel it," said the Witch. "I won't have it, I won't have it. I won't have a soul; with a soul there is everlastingness, and life has tortured me enough."

The Witch realized now the truth of her own words. She jolted as she stopped herself from staggering backwards. She was just so tired. Life had been cruel. And so much longer for being as such. A soul would only bring more pain and she just wanted one more thing. Like this ignorant little being, she supposed, and laughed bitterly. Perhaps she would give it to her.

"I didn't come for you." Muttered the inconvenient girl. "I came for forgiveness."

With a shriek, the laughter stopped.


	9. Epilogue

**_A/N: And thus we reach the end of the road of good intentions. A massive thanks to all my reviewers. LillyFae who has been absolutely wonderful. Elphieispopular whose loyalty to my work is admirable. Doglover645 who has stuck with me from the beginning and UndefeatedAura who is proving to be a very worthwhile human being. If all the other chapters have been to the tune of No Good Deed, this is to the few bars of music in No One Mourns the Wicked just before Frex says take it away._**

**Road of Good Intentions: Epilogue**

No one mourned the wicked. There was joy and celebration all across the land. People hailed Dorothy and a Saint for her deed. The Ozians believed that, with the Witch dead, life would be full and blissful. They were wrong and, most of them didn't even notice. Instead there was a profound emptiness that took the hearts of the Ozians in a vice-like grip.

Two points seemed emptier than most. This despite one being surrounded by yards of material long enough to travel the entire length of the Yellow Brick Road and the other being in the biggest city in the country.

The Good Witch smiled at her fellow Ozians, but it came out more of a grimace. She gives them words of life and encouragement, but they feel dead and hollow. If she had been a brighter woman she'd have known the lack she was feeling was the absence of thought the woman she had long ago known as Elphaba. The green woman had been the moral compass of her ship that was so often stranded at sea. But she was not a smarter woman and, the one who might have told her was dead. So she continued spouting words she was loathe to choke out that meant nothing.

The boy was no one. Half-dead already and barely a day had gone by. He knew what he lacked, aside from food. She was gone. His mother, his protector, his teacher, his keeper. He had learned alright. He had learned the harshness of the world because it had taken her. Now for her lack, it's edges were sharper and the cloaks to hold the knives that much denser. She was the oncoming storm that swept around those who could not stand it, preparing to tear down the structures that put down the Ozians. She was gone. And so was Oz's hope, for she was the one to pull them from under the Wizards thumb. He was nothing without her.

At last she was dead and gone. Without her to hold it at bay, the emptiness spread through the land. Every day the terror grew in the nothingness. The carapace was filled with her reputation for malice. So, though true wickedness spread, Oz kept on dancing through because the Wicked was gone. Not so much as a lily on her grave. It was all for nothing.

No one mourned the wicked.

**_A/N: And we're done with this For Good! I promise to work on Bones tomorrow. I also have a crossover idea that you might see soonish._**


End file.
